The Japanese Wife by Aparna Sen: An innocent but implausible story

By
Bhawani Cheerath Rajagopalan

There is a completeness in the type of films Aparna Sen makes. Each one of her attempts in all these years has looked at absolutely disparate subjects. The only thing common in them was that it really dwelt on the lives of human beings in flesh and blood. Seen through such a lens The Japanese Wife is quite unlike any so far. Naiveté writ large on her characters – the teacher Snehamoy (Rahul Bose) and Miyage (Chigasu Takasu), a supporting cast that plays along with the hero totally ignorant about the possibility of any real emotion tied to the exchange of letters that takes place between the two characters.

This is her first film for which she has relied on another’s work – Kunal Basu’s Japanese Wife and she seemed quite apprehensive about in some of her utterances on the film.

What would one have to say about a hundred and nineteen minute film which transports you to a pen-friendship that mutates into a love affair, and then a marriage that remains a long distance one! How does one reconcile to this unreal situation in these times of ‘here-today-gone-tomorrow’ marriages? Call it slow, dull, revealing nothing new, etc, but the success of the filmmaker is that she makes you a partner in the Snehamoy-Miyage experience. Even while you know this can’t be real, you wish they get what they desire so strongly. For, unflinching love and devotion is what keeps you go along. But that is not all. This naïve yet innocent story unspools before us in bits, located in riparian territory in rural Bengal and in Japan.

The school teacher Snehamoy is in a world of his own. When pen-friendship turns into marriage the letters continue but the two of them are not bogged down by the near impossibility of coming together. Snehamoy is unflinching in his commitment even when he has a widowed Sandhya with her little son seeking shelter in the home he shares with his aunt (Moushumi Chatterjee). Sandhya brings a sense of order and neatness to the room he occupies, but Snehamoy notices it but cannot acknowledge because Sandhya does not give any opportunity to open a conversation, because she knows her place as a widow!

After all this rather mundane existence what is it that keeps you from rubbishing the film. Aparna Sen has given us some exquisite vignettes from rural Bengal, caught the sky in luminous hues we humans can never get to see. The frames have been exquisitely conceived, thanks to the cinematographer and the director. The rain that comes in with strong winds carrying it give a haze to the river and the little boats that are ferrying people, the gushing waters in the soft alluvial sand creates rivulets, whirlpools and its own noise is punctuated by the sounds of windows rattling and curtains soaring high to let in the spray of water, complete the picture of life in those regions during those downpours.

Aparna Sen may have some explaining to do for creating a film of such an unreal situation. But her success in this film is that she has made us partners in the events that make up the Snehamoy – Miyage relationship. When the affair seems near impossible one wishes neither of them gets hurt. So, that speaks of the success of the director. Interestingly, I happened to watch the film at the Film Festival in Thiruvananthapuram, and a good seventy per cent of the audience consisted of film students, technicians and simple film enthusiasts in the 20-30 age bandwidth. If one is to go by their responses it is clear the film was embraced positively by the Next Gen even when they saw the unreal situation playing itself out before their eyes. Would it also not be right to use that as a gauge of the acceptance the film received?

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 This review gives a fine, warm introduction to the film, and makes one think about the central question, that is, despite everything, why do we love this film? I would slightly disagree with Bhawani's use of the word "unreal" here. Snehamoy's love and marriage are not unreal, but simply ABSURD to everyone else. But for Snehamoy, it is a compelling, relentless reality. Can we call it an "alternative reality"? Perhaps we can. People who think differently are often excluded from the so-called mainstream and usually have a hard time. Snehamoy is just one of them, but certainly not the only one. For example, in spite of mountains of scientific evidence in their favour, homosexuals are still ostracized in our society. I might add one point. The "war between Japanese kites and Indian kites" shown in the film, an event that quickly slips into mindless slogans, zindabads and murdabads, brings out the sad reality of the fractured social life in rural Bengal today. And the scene is a treat for the eyes.

Santanu | January 20, 2011